I suppose you would have an issue with Paul, Priscilla and Aquila taking important time out of the work to waste their time making foolish tents. Tents are pretty worldly. And Jesus, well, how dare He waste the entire first thirty years of his life in such a worldly wicked job as a carpenter! There is nothing in the Bible that tells us that the life of a believer must have absolutely nothing else in it. We have not been called out of the world, just not to be a part of the world. That means we should have some sort of ability to talk to them in a way they understand. Jesus, when He spoke to the lost, used stories and examples of worldly things of society. He even said to make unto yourselves friends of mammon. The idea we must reject every aspect of the world we live in is unbiblical and unrealistic, and honestly, I can't think of one story of anyone falling into sin and debauchery...or crossdressing, for that matter, from watching Bugs Bunny. As for my goats, actually, I have learned a lot about being a pastor from raising sheep and goats-the Bible speaks a lot about them, but I never fully understood it and was able to apply it until I raised them. So don't disrespect the sheep and the goats, for of such are you, my dear fellow-sheep.

And so, our callings and methods even change depending on where we are: What I do in my home, is vastly different from what I did in San Diego, particularly in the methods. What works in a busy city doesn't always work in a small rural community. Here there has to be trust built, relationships. Its a slow process; in a place like San Diego or LA, its go-go-go, no time to build relationships so we get the gospel out faster.

Micro-evolution, so called, is merely variations within a species. DNA allows for various modifications, and when those modified animals mate, more modifications are possible. There is some mutation possible, as well, though in a wild setting, they are always negative. Like albinism: in pets, various animals, it can be beautiful and make them worth a lot of money, but for many animals, it limits them in the wild. Like snakes, makes them more visible to predators, and to their prey, alike. And for other animals, makes them more light sensitive and tendency to bad eyesight. So generally speaking, mutations are bad, but variations are built-in and nothing wrong with them. That's how I have Boer goats, which are a variety borne out of Nubians, Angoras, and some other goats, a variation. Built into the genetics. Not evolution, just another goat.

Boy I know this-this is kind of part of how we lost our church building-one guy who didn't believe a pastor was doing his job if he wasn't actively supporting and being involved in an addiction recovery program. When I wouldn't allow him to use our building for his program, (a Rick Warren program), he went before the Baptist association who held our note and complained about us not supporting them, and that since we were behind in our payments, (though spending a lot of money on building upkeep and repairs, like a new well), he insisted they take it back. Initially they voted to give us another 6 months to get payments going again, something we were in a position to do, but he fought and whined and complained and got them to revote, and voted to take the building. Then he never used it and left the church he was pastoring about 6 months later. So, since we didn't do what he thought was important, he convinced them to take the building, then never used it himself. So we need to be about our own ministries, not being worried about where the Lord has placed others. I have a friend who for years didn't attend a 'normal' church, because he was ministering to ranchers at an auction on Sundays-it was the only day the auction ran, so the ranchers had no choice-if they were going to go to auction, they had to go Sunday, so he started a service every Sunday morning before the auction began and had some good success with it. Being a guy who also goes to auction, I understand-if you are going to do your work and it involves the auction, you go when its open. So God blessed them with church there. There is no lack of ministries out there-and I think we need to be more creative in finding them. I preached for two nights some years back at a motocross, in the pit area. Biggest crowd I every preached to! No one was saved, but the gospel got out, and I know it made some difference because someone walking behind be cussed me out while I was speaking; I offered to let him repeat himself to the crowd, but he deferred.
But that's why I watch Touched by an Angel...

Bugs float really well, and since there would have probably been many floating mats and flotsam and jetsam, carcasses and such that bugs would float on and survive on. Noah didn't take any fish, either, he took all that had the breath of life in it's nostrils. Insects breathe through their skin.Also, there were probably numerous living throughout the ark itself, feeding off the droppings of the animals, helping keep it a bit cleaner.As for the giraffes, these are the two the Lord brought to the ark. Of course there would be no evolution, but paleontology shows the truth that there was once a much wider variety of animals than we have today-a lot more types of, say elephants, all kinds of weird variations, but we only have two today, the African and the Indian elephants. Again, the flood probably brought that to be the case-since space was limited, only two of most animals were brought a male and female. Maybe the African and Indian are just the two variations we got from the two brought aboard the ark. Same with Giraffes. However, notice all the kinds of sheep and goats and deer-these are all clean animals, so they were brought in sevens, seven males and seven females, so maybe there was a much wider variety brought, and interbreeding would account for all the varieties we see today.Raising goats, I know it doesn't take long to get something new. If, say, you had seven male goats and seven female goats. Say, the Lord wanting variety, brings seven variations of females, and seven variations of males. Then they breed, maybe just after the ark closes. Knowing God's plan is to repopulate the earth, and especially wanting many for sacrificial purposes, hence, clean animals, He would probably have blessed the breedings of the goats and they would all take, and all have the maximum number, which seems to be about 5. Gestation is five months, so in five months, you have up to 35 new babies, added to the 14 originals, you get 49 goats. Then, we switch, the males jumping their fences to breed females of a different 'breed'-after say two months of raising their babies. So now, about a month after the Ark has rested, you have another 35 babies, but they have different characteristics, being cross-bred. 84 goats total, from an original 14, and 35 are now slightly different from the originals, so now, you get your males and females running off in small herds, again directed by God's hand, something I don't believe He left to random chance, and now we have numerous different breeds racing off to populate the cleansed earth, and as they go, there might be more variations between them. It would not take long to populate with that sort of thing.Now, add to them the sheep, and the cattle and the deer and antelope and the various other 'clean' animals, and you can see where the amazing variations there came from, very quickly, while things like horses and elephants and such, we see much less variation, especially animals that have a long gestation period and only bear one offspring per one or two years, and cannot bear until they are a few years old, as opposed to goats and sheep which technically, can become pregnant at about 6 months, and males can impregnate at about 4 months. Quick and efficient!So to sum up-the larger animals had greater variation before the flood, created that way, but it was lost when the flood came, and bugs lust lived on, and from, whatever was floating in the water until the flood waters dropped away.

Of course: the government never applies the same rules to itself that it does to everyone else. That's why Algore has a mansion that uses as much energy as a small town, but can still be seen as a great champion for the earth and green causes, because he sells carbon credits. So he makes money, stated for overcoming carbon, then probably pays someone to go plant a tree for it. And he gets richer. Now, I'm no fan of GW Bush either, but at least his property is almost completely self-sufficient, between geothermal heating and cooling, solar and wind power, and reuse of grey water. I would love to grow pitcher plants and other carnivorous plants, but we are just too dry here. Tomatoes do well, though.

Believe it or not, we have two airstrips already, lol; one is on the Army base, and the land around it was bought recently, and they are trying to get a big shipping company to use it as a hub, like Fed Ex or UPS-they have a hub in Reno, but they pay exorbitant amounts to fly-here they would have full use, except for the occasions the Army uses it, which is rare. And we have a small civilian strip. The entire area is zoned for agriculture-its a big alfalfa and grass hay growing area. Again, being surrounded by BLM land, they are going to be pretty touchy about any change in use. As well we have 'endangered' kangaroo rats (which you have to fight not to hit due to their numbers on the roads), the wandering skipper, (a tiny moth), and the sage grouse. So then you have to go through the EPA, as well. Plus we have a seasonal vernal pond, which the environmentalists here in California would somehow try to make a wetland and not let it be used. So I try to avoid the attention of the government at any level.

Just take her to see the United States-that's all she needs to impress her.No, seriously, I agree that you let her enjoy local foods, local sights, local shopping and local people. She's leaving England for a while, let her leave it all behind and enjoy being somewhere new. When I was in the Navy, I tried to get away from the 'Americanized' areas, and got out to the small, local restaurants, shopped in non-tourist areas, and just enjoyed being in a different culture. In Asia I ate with my hands because that what all the locals were doing. I tried new things and really had a good time.

yes, but again, we have to subdivide the property, and that takes a wad of cash. And unfortunately, the property here isn't of much value. Our 80 acres was bought for $21,000 in the 1980's, and isn't worth much more today. no one wants to live here, because its a dying community, and hard to work. We are surrounded by BLM land, and really the only hope we would have of getting a decent sum of money for the property, is if the local Army base decided they wanted the ability to expand out our direction, and made us an offer. But that won't happen, because they can expand north to the Oregon border, many miles up, no need to go our direction.Of course, if the 'big one" ever occurs, and the San Andreas fault line goes, we may be sitting on beach front property. Then the world is our oyster.

I had a ram who was quite sweet to us, and loved being scratched and petted, but he would go toe to toe with our alpha goat buck. Now the buck, he was the ornery one, and I found what worked best with him was a switch. A heavy stick didn't work because heavy hitting was what they were used to, but a switch stung, and after a dozen good, fast whips with that, he'd retreat to the corner of the pen until I left. No blood, no damage, he just had no defense against it.